Alligators in October: Can You Say Brumation?

 I wasn't thinking about alligators when my wife and I purchased a home on Lake Mary in southern Mississippi two years ago.  

If alligators lived in my new neighborhood, I assumed they would hang out in nearby Lake Foster, a lake ringed by cypress swamps and aquatic plants. My property was clear of marshland, presumably no habitat for an alligator.

Anyway, wasn't Wilkinson County, Mississippi too far north for alligators? After all, it can become bitterly cold on Lake Mary Road in winter--surely too frigid for cold-blooded creatures to survive.

Therefore, I was surprised when I saw a six-foot alligator sunning on my dock the summer after I settled into my Lake Mary home. I assumed it was an anomaly. Alligator hunters bagged him during the first weekend of Mississippi's alligator hunting season, and my lakefront home was rendered alligator-free.

Or so I thought. A few days ago, my five-year-old grandson reported seeing gators hanging around our neighbor's pier. Mom investigated and discovered six small alligators and one larger one lounging in the shallows.

Were the little ones siblings? Was the large one their mama? Do female alligators have maternal instincts like feral hogs, which will kill you if you mess with their piglets?

Anyway, it's mid-October. Why weren't those alligators hibernating?

I did a little Google research and learned that alligators don't hibernate. Rather, they bruminate, which means their metabolism slows in the colder months, they become lethargic, and stop eating.

These alligators are just another bit of evidence that Lake Mary, Mississippi, is unlike the idyllic Golden Pond of New England, where Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn spent their peaceful summers, troubled only by infrequent visits from Jane.

We've got feral hogs, venomous snakes and spiders, and Asian carp that leap from the water and occasionally injure boaters. We are visited by annual spring floods. Deer run across Highway 24 at night and collide with passing cars. And we've got alligators--at least seven.

Perhaps that is just as well. After all, it's a dangerous world.  We need to look up from our cellphones from time to time and scout about for hidden dangers.

On Golden Pond: At least we don't have alligators.

The Governmnt Shuts Down But the Hummingbirds are Still on the Clock

 My wife and I recently returned from an extended vacation in the Desert Southwest. We spent a few days at our family cabin in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, and then motored on to Utah, where we toured Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.

Our timing was fortuitous because the federal government shut down a few days after we returned home. Most national parks, including those in Utah, remain open, but who knows when the shutdown will affect park operations.

So far, at least, I haven't been inconvenienced by the government shutdown. My faithful postman still delivers my mail, and the politicians assure me that my Social Security checks will continue being deposited in my checking account.

Life goes on. I spied a hummingbird in my garden this morning, sucking nectar from a lavender plant. He's still on the clock.

 In another part of the garden, a mourning dove pecked around our sunflower patch, because doves adore sunflower seeds more than life itself. I walked within three feet of the creature, and it did not startle.

In the coming days, Progressive journalists will comb the country looking for hard-luck stories about people suffering because government offices are closed. However, most Americans are unaffected by the government shutdown, and many who are impacted will blame Senator Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.

For the present, I will enjoy the change of seasons in southern Mississippi, plant a fall garden, and give thanks for living in Flyover Country. The political turmoil in Washington, DC, has nothing to do with me or my family.

Lake Mary, Mississippi

Weekend at Lake Mary: Gratitude and Expectations on a Mississippi Autumn Morning

The days I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, those are good days.

Ray Wylie Hubbard

I have suffered from insomnia for at least 65 years. Even as a small child, I had trouble sleeping, and my inability to nod off easily made me perpetually anxious about the coming day.

Perhaps this affliction could be traced to the stories my father told me when I was four years old about his years in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. He often described fellow prisoners who starved themselves to death, committed suicide, or drowned when a prison ship sank and they didn't know how to swim. 

I interpreted my father's stories to be a message that weak people die when confronted by hardship, and I felt certain at age four that I would never be strong enough to survive what my father endured as a Japanese prisoner of war. My father ate bugs and lizards to stay alive, and I could hardly swallow broccoli!

Or perhaps my nighttime anxieties sprang from my encounters with the hell-and-brimstone Protestant religion that my childhood friends practiced and my fantasies about roasting on hot coals for eternity because I was a Methodist and not baptized by immersion like my playmates.

Now I'm in the evening of life and sleep better, especially when I'm home on Lake Mary in southern Mississippi. Last weekend, I slept exceptionally well and awoke refreshed just before 5 AM. I told myself it would be a good day because I planned to mow my property's four-acre woodlot. I would start early and finish my work before the day turned hot.

Some of my family members are early risers and nearly always start the day before me, but I woke up long before dawn that morning. The darkened house was quiet when I walked into the kitchen. I pushed the brew button on Mr. Coffee, which began gurgling benignly, filling the kitchen with the heavenly fragrance of dark-roast Community coffee.

I found a pack of Pillsbury biscuits in the refrigerator and a pound of Wright's thick-cut smoked bacon. I opened the biscuit package, placed eight dough globs on a baking sheet, and slipped them in the oven to cook.

I fried bacon while the biscuits baked, and in a few moments, I had prepared a feast. I buttered the biscuits, smothered them with mayhaw jelly, and made bacon-and-jelly biscuit sandwiches, which I ate with my coffee.

Knox, my family's genial springer spaniel, woke when he heard me stirring. He smelled the bacon and came into the kitchen, subtly letting me know he was joining me for breakfast. 

"No, Knox," I told him, "this bacon isn't for you," but I warmed a hot dog for him in the skillet and poured the warm bacon grease over his dry dog food. Knox seemed satisfied.

It was dark outside, and there was no sign yet of dawn. I sipped my coffee and ate my simple meal silently, pleasantly conscious that I had no morning newspaper to read or email to open. 

Gradually, the sun introduced itself with long shadows creeping over the roof from the east and casting its pale light on Lake Mary. The lake was placid with no wind this morning, and the water looked bluish white in the predawn ambience.

Finally, the morning sun rose high enough to dominate the day, and it was light enough for me to begin mowing the four-acre woodlot with my zero-turn lawnmower. The grass was overlong because the mower broke down the last time I mowed, and it took me several days to get the replacement part I needed to drive the lawnmower blades.

Would my mower start? I asked myself, and suddenly recalled repeatedly pulling the starter rope on my family's Briggs & Stratton push mower when I was a kid. The misery!

Fortunately, my Toro zeo-turn mower has a battery, not a starter rope, and the engine roared to life with one turn of its key. I set the cutting level at three inches, and soon I was off, riding in padded comfort into the woodlot.

I drove slowly and cautiously to keep the long grass and weeds from overwhelming the mower.  As I crept over the field, I stirred up dust and bugs, but I'd smeared insect repellent over me--the good stuff, laced with DEET. The bugs didn't bother me.

I remembered mowing 40-acre fields when I was young, pulling a brush hog behind my father's John Deere tractor hour after hour. I suffered from asthma as a teenager and self-medicated with double doses of Dristan--eight pills a day.

To stay hydrated on mowing days, I'd make a couple of gallons of Nestea instant tea in a plastic jug, sweeten it with copious amounts of sugar, and fill the jug with ice from the old-fashioned ice trays that I'd take from my family's venerable Frigidaire.

I would end every summer day of mowing covered with dust and grit and my face blackened by diesel smoke. Even my teeth would be black.

This day, however, I only had four acres to mow, and if I needed refreshment, I could get a cold beer out of the refrigerator--much better than powered instant tea.

If I cut my grass weekly, the mowing job takes less than three hours. It would take longer on this day because the grass was so long. Nevertheless, I was starting early while the day was still cool, and I would be shaded for much of the time by the lot's many trees--cypresses, red oaks, pecan trees, and sycamores.

And so I traversed my woodlot, moving along slowly and steadily, taking satisfaction from seeing my property slowly transformed into a neatly clipped, tree-shaded lawn.

 I was finished before noon--just in time to watch the New Orleans Saints play the Cardinals. My wife grilled venison burgers from a deer I shot in January.

It was a good day. As Ray Wylie Hubbard might have said, my gratitude exceeded my expectations. I was grateful for my little piece of Mississippi ground, my wife and family, my riding lawnmower, my venison burger, and my cold beer.

 

Labor Day at Lake Mary: Serenity in the Midst of Climate Change and the Trump Derangement Syndrome

 My home sits on the banks of Lake Mary in southwestern Mississippi. Shaped like a ten-mile bratwurst sausage, Lake Mary is an oxbow lake formed when the Mississippi River changed course long ago--in the eighteenth century, I've been told.

Unlike my region's recreational lakes and waterways, Lake Mary is undeveloped. Even on Labor Day, when other watery playgrounds are packed with boaters, skiers, and jet ski enthusiasts, Lake Mary is virtually deserted. I saw only three boats pass by all day.

Lake Mary is only 90 minutes from Baton Rouge, a leisurely weekend drive. Why aren't there more lakefront homes here?

Climate change is the primary reason Lake Mary has been passed by, leaving it a Southern Living Brigadoon. In the mid-twentieth century, Lake Mary and nearby Lake Foster were a famous duck hunting paradise, and hunters came from near and far to hunt ducks and geese. A few lodging houses near the lakes catered to these seasonal visitors, but now they are largely devoid of guests.

What happened? Global warming changed the fly routes of migratory birds. Now, ducks are more likely to spend the winter farther north--in Oklahoma or Arkansas. 

Thirty years ago, Lake Mary was a reliable fishing spot where anglers could catch largemouth bass. No longer. Now the lake is stocked with Asian carp, an invasive species that swam into the lake from the Mississippi River. Wildlife officials along the Mississippi drainage system are fighting to keep the carp from extending their range, but Lake Mary lost that battle long ago, and the Asian carp have taken over.

 Alligator gar, a needle-nosed prehistoric-looking species, has also muscled its way into the lake, and together the carp and gar have pushed out the sport fish. Both species are edible, but few people want to eat them.

Another sign that the ecosystem is changing: alligators are moving north, and my family occasionally spots a gator sunning on the lake bank. Swimming in Lake Mary has become less inviting.

Feral hogs have also grown in numbers in southern Mississippi, and climate change may explain this expansion. These beasts roam the woods in large sounders--20 pigs or more-- and compete with the deer for forage.

Given all these disadvantages, why would I want to live on Lake Mary? Several reasons. First, I cherish the serenity and the solitude. 

My neighbors occasionally pass by my homestead on the gravel road that borders my property-- people in 4-wheel drive pickups or all-terrain vehicles. But there are no traffic jams or road rage, no carjackings.

I also love my Mississippi home for the abundant bird life: snowy egrets, great egrets, white ibises, blue herons, tricolored herons, kingfishers, and the occasional stork and bald eagle. Late in life, I've become a hack birdwatcher.

Even so, living on Lake Mary has a significant drawback. My property floods yearly when spring rains flow down from the upper Mississippi Valley, depositing as much as eight feet of water under my house.

Climate change? Many of my neighbors think so. According to the oldtimers, the Mississippi River hardly ever flooded this region until 30 years ago. People speculate that extreme weather events have caused more torrential rainstorms and that the excessive water has triggered soil erosion, silting up the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

No matter. My home sits on steel piers 15 feet above ground level. It would take a flood of biblical proportions to threaten my habitation.

So, as Waylon Jennings put it, "Let the world call me a fool." I'm content to live out my days in a backwater of southern Mississippi, where the sunsets are gorgeous and no one suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Catastrophic Weather Events and the High Cost of Living Make Flyover Country More Appealing

 Wildfires in Los Angeles have driven thousands of Angelinos out of their homes, and many won't return. California, with its spectacular weather and stunning beauty, has become too difficult for anyone but the wealthy to live.

Catastrophic weather events--wildfires, mudslides, and earthquakes--coupled with stratospheric real estate prices, sky-high taxes, and directionless political leadership have transformed paradise into a nightmare for people of modest means.

So, where will discouraged Californians go? Many are going to Texas and Florida, but taxes and the cost of living have climbed in those sunny states.

 Austin, known for its low cost of living in the 1970s when I was a student at the University of Texas, has become so expensive that a person of modest means can't afford to migrate there. 

Florida has been a retirement haven for almost a century but has become too pricey for many older Americans on fixed incomes. And then there are the hurricanes.

How about Flyover country? Would that be a good region to move to? 

The Cambridge Dictionary defines Flyover Country as "parts of the United States which many people only see when they fly over them on journeys to the other coast, but which they would never visit." In other words, Flyover Country is made up of the regions of the U.S. that were once known as Middle America or the Heartland.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent article, some parts of Flyover Country are becoming increasingly attractive—specifically Middle Appalachia: 

Drawn by lower housing costs and living expenses, lower taxes, lower insurance costs, low crime, warm weather (but with seasons) and less chance of hurricanes, an older, wealthier population is arriving [in Middle Appalachia]and demanding a level of services from governments and businesses that neither had to provide in the past.

Other parts of Flyover Country are just as enticing but have yet to be discovered by the frazzled Americans trying to escape the high cost of living on the East and West Coasts.

I live on Lake Mary in South Mississippi, in the heart of Flyover Country, and I find it a congenial place to live. I admit that Lake Mary is not as prestigious as Lake Tahoe. We fish for catfish here instead of rainbow trout, but real estate is a lot cheaper in Mississippi than in the famous Nevada vacation spot, and the people are more interesting. 

And life in South Mississippi offers attractions you can't find on Cape Cod or the Hamptons. For example, we have an alligator season in Mississippi, and you can hunt feral hogs here day or night all year round. 

Marlin fishing in the Keys is all well and good, but it's nothing like hooking into a monster alligator gar or Asian carp on Lake Mary. And you can take my word: a fried Mississippi catfish tastes as good as any seafood you will eat on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. 

Not all Flyover Country is idyllic. We need better schools in the rural South and an economy that produces more middle-class jobs. Nevertheless, as coastal cities become increasingly expensive and crime rates rise, Flyover Country might be a better place to live and raise a family.

Image credit:  TV Tropes

Wild Pigs Divert My Attention from LSU's Disastrous Loss to Texas A&M

It’s Saturday evening at Lake Mary, Mississippi, and my family has congregated around our big-screen TV to watch LSU play Texas A&M in College Station. It’s a big game: LSU is ranked Number 8 in the national polls, and the Aggies are rated Number 14. Neither team has lost a Southeast Conference game.

I am filled with a sense of well-being. Loved ones are gathered around me. Cold beer is in the refrigerator, and we have plenty of game-time snacks. I adjust my Lazy Boy recliner to a comfortable semi-prone position.

All goes well in the first half, and LSU shows good prospects of beating the insufferable Aggies. Then, my team falls apart. Three interceptions and three missed field goals attest to a Tiger meltdown. I prepare myself for a major case of the weekend blues. We’re running out of beer.

Then providence intervenes. The game camera affixed to a pecan tree alerts us to two feral hogs rooting about in our three-acre front yard. All distress about the ballgame vanishes, and two family members break out their rifles from our gun safe. Armed with a 30.06 and a 30-30, they creep down to my home’s ground level and start shooting.

Both pigs squeal and head for the brush. The smaller hog is mortally wounded but manages to travel about 50 yards before succumbing to her wounds. Two generations of family members with flashlights follow the blood trail and find the interloper. She is stone dead.

What to do with a dead feral hog? Family members truss it up to one of the steel girders that keep our living quarters above the annual spring flood waters. Then they field dress the pig, dividing it into hams, ribs, pork shoulders, and backstrap. 

The hog slayers ice down the meat in a large ice chest and call it a night. We learn that LSU lost to A &M by a score of 38-23, but nobody cares.

The next morning, I propose we take all the hog meat to a nearby game processing plant and turn it into pork chops, sausage, and dinner-size pork loins. I offer to foot the bill.

We vote, and everyone except me opts to process the hog on our kitchen counter. By two in the afternoon, our feral hog is parceled and tucked away in the freezer--about a hundred pounds of meat.

Feral hogs are a major nuisance in the rural South, where they tear up the landscape and destroy crops. People are allowed to hunt them year-around by day or night. 

Everyone I know who has eaten wild-pig meat tells me that the small porkers are delicious. Thus, I ended my weekend feeling good about my family's contribution to feral hog control. And I'm looking forward to eating a pig harvested in my own front yard.

Who cares who won the LSU-Texas A&M game?